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Two nonprofit groups have been offered federal Head Start grants to serve needy preschool
children in central Ohio, but not the Columbus Urban League, which had to compete to retain its
grant because of past accounting problems.

The league’s president said it’s too soon to know whether the nonprofit group has lost its $7.1
million grant. But others say that, even though nothing is final, it isn’t likely the group will
get a last-minute award.

“It’s my understanding that they did not get their grant re-awarded,” said Barbara Haxton, the
executive director of the Ohio Head Start Association.

The two groups named by the national Head Start office as tentative grant winners are the Child
Development Council of Franklin County, which now receives $31 million from Head Start, and the
YMCA of Central Ohio, which would be new to the federal program.

The government has notified both groups that they will receive grants, pending negotiations, but
neither knows how much or whether they will take on some of the 1,025 children the Urban League now
serves.

“We just know that we have been given a grant; we have to negotiate what it is going to be,”
said Anita Davis, spokeswoman for the Child Development Council. A YMCA spokeswoman said the
national Head Start office forbids her from commenting until negotiations are completed.

The Urban League is also in negotiations, said Stephanie Hightower, its president and CEO. “What
we’ve been advised by the office of Head Start is that there will be no final decision made until
June 30 about who will be providing services here in Franklin County,” Hightower said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Administration of Children and Families, which oversees Head Start,
would not say whether the Urban League will lose its money.

Founded in 1965, the Head Start program aims to prepare children from low-income families for
school.

The Urban League has won grant money from the program since 2007, when it was one of two groups
that took over the Head Start work of a nonprofit agency that had collapsed. But a 2010 review of
the Urban League’s records found accounting problems. The league reported its time sheets for
workers incorrectly, government officials wrote in 2011. A 2009-10 audit also found that the group
misused $13,000 in grant money on expenses, including a trip to a National Urban League
convention.

“We have since then corrected that deficiency,” said Hightower, who became president of the
group after the federal audit. She said the group plans to pay back the $13,000.

Any group labeled with a “deficiency,” a broadly defined term, must compete to keep its grant as
part of tighter restrictions enacted in recent years.

The Urban League had to turn in a new proposal for its program, which includes six buildings in
Columbus. Among those that turned in proposals locally, only the Child Development Council and the
YMCA won. The development council has run a local Head Start program since 1986.

A sticking point in negotiations for the grant money is federal sequestration, which included a
5.27 percent cut in Head Start funding. Davis said the development council could add children but
lose money, possibly forcing cutbacks.

Regardless of who wins the grants, Hightower said her group will continue to focus on
early-childhood education. “We believe in this work,” she said.